Unbreakable
by kalabangsilver
Summary: With her family gone and no friends left at court, who can a little bird turn to for help? Set 2-3 years in the future, AU from CoK onwards. Sansa/Sandor angst and slight romance.


_Unbreakable_

.

She sits on the edge of the bed, her body quaking worse than he has ever seen. Auburn hair forms tangles around Tully eyes. She has been crying – and for a long time, he should think, the powder they paint her face with is all but washed away. The tears have left her now, with only dry sobs to replace them. Every few breaths, her ribs flutter and her body convulses more than normal, and the smallest noise escapes her lips. It is almost a breath of air, but for the pleading whine on the end of it.

The Hound stands in the doorway to her chambers, watching as the handmaidens scurry about, wrapping bloodied sheets up in clean ones, hiding the evidence of their master's latest folly. His master's folly, he should say, though connecting himself to the boy-king in moments such as these is increasingly difficult. Joffrey is barely more than a child, yet has an appetite for the macabre that his Dog has rarely seen in full-grown men. Some days, he reminds him of his brother. Gregor would have beat her bloody too, he thinks. Gregor would have cut deeper than the boy-king, but that will come with practice, thinks the Hound. In time, the little bird will be as ruined as Joffrey wants her to be and he will lose interest. Then what will become of her, he wonders?

It is not his place to wonder, though, just to stand guard and see that the maids finish clearing up. His master's mother has given him strict instructions to keep this aspect of her royal child hidden from prying eyes. No doubt, she does not want the public to know what a monster she had birthed. So, she sends an uglier monster in his stead – to stand guard and, one day, to take the blame when someone comes upon them.

Would the Stark girl openly blame him, to protect her king? Sandor Clegane's eyes rest on hers, for a moment. Even through the tears, she looks numb. Yes, he thinks she might.

"All the bedding is taken care of, Ser," the maid bows and the Hound reigns in the urge to tell her to 'fuck her Sers'. The servant girl is barely older than Sansa Stark herself – no more than ten and seven.

He nods his head roughly towards the entrance to the chambers. "Be gone, then."

She and two other girls skitter out, clutching their bags of dirty linens and the ripped gown that the Stark girl wore. Once they are gone, the Hound shifts from one foot to another, eyes glancing over the room. It is Spartan – devoid, on Cersei's orders, of anything sharp enough to take a life with. The featherbed is soft, surely, but Sandor doubts the little bird finds much comfort it on it, or gets much sleeping done. On the rare occasions he has been asked to guard her door, he hears her cries throughout the night. She wakes from dream terrors so real that he can imagine she sees her father's head on a spike on front of her, every time she closes her eyes.

He thinks that the day Joffrey forced her up onto that bridge, to stare over at the mounted heads, is the day he first found himself drawn to her. The strength in her eyes was so much more potent than he had seen in a girl of four and ten years. That was nearly three years ago, now, however. There is no strength in her eyes, tonight. Unlike the other nights, she does not pick herself up and, wrapped in new linens, walk over to the hot water the maids had prepared. She does not ask him, polite as ever, to leave so that she may perform her ablutions. She does nothing, just stares and shakes and, every now and then, lets out a body-racking sob.

After a minute or so, he takes a tentative step inside the room and she flinches, looking around.

He considers moving, at her flinch, but cannot bring himself to do so when he sees the relief that lights in her eyes, to see that it is him standing there. His heart quickens in his chest; never has anyone looked at his face and shown relief, before. Sandor Clegane knows that he is a monstrous dog, knows that he is uglier than any man in Westeros has the right to be and still alive, yet she is relieved to find him standing in her doorway. Perhaps I am servant to a king more monstrous than I, thinks the Hound, eyes sweeping once more over the Stark girl's tangled hair.

"You should clean yourself up," he offers gruffly, after a few moments are spent, watching each other.

If the boy-king was feeling particularly malevolent, he would ask her to join him at the dinner table, after he had assaulted her – just to see the pain in her eyes. To her credit, the little bird never let it show anywhere but her eyes. She kept a pleasant voice, remembered her pleasantries, smiled at the other guests. Even the lion Queen was impressed by her facade. She was always a wolf, a little winter lady, made of ice. But not tonight. Tonight, she was huddled and bloody and broken.

"Did he hurt you more than usual?" The Hound asks, his question almost halting. Part of him does not want to know the answer to it.

It was a long time before the replies. When she does, her tone is heavy with resignation, her words steady.

"He beat me, Ser, as usual. He did not..." her eyes lower momentarily and the Hound wonders what horrors it would take for her to say 'fuck'. "He did not lie with me, this time. His Grace says he is saving me, for when I am before my moon's blood. He says..." she pauses, gives a little shiver, a little ashamed glance over at the Hound, in the doorway. "He will put a bastard in my belly and then nobody will ever want to wed me. I will be his, forever."

His toy, thinks Sandor, angrily. He has a queen and he has servants, so all he needs Sansa Stark for is his own sadistic enjoyment. The thought of him getting a child on her drives hatred, like a hot sword, through his belly. He is a little ashamed to admit that it is possessive anger, which stirs him. Despite it all, despite her never having belonged to him, he cannot help but think of her as his little bird. He is the one she chirps to, once the others have fled, out of shame of their master. He is the only one she lets see her tears. What does that make them, if not belonging to one another?

The King's bastard, in her King's Hound nearly growls.

"There are potions," he begins, but Sansa shakes her head.

"I am allowed no maester, nor is it safe to send any messages by servants. They are all of the Queen's doing, Ser, I know it."

Surely the Queen does not care for Joffrey to sire bastards, thinks the Hound. The world knew her opinion of Robert's, after all. Then again, the Queen might waive such a concern if it saw the ruin of Sansa, daughter of the House of Stark. Second-born heir, corrects Sandor, with a momentary lapse in anger. He and the little bird shared a prefix to their name. Sansa and Sandor, they were both second-born; a second-born daughter and second-born son. Perhaps, the gods had indeed meant for them to belong to one another. A cruel twist of fate, then, that he must watch her suffer like this.

"Plenty women come to love their children, without ever having loved their father," he tells her, as softly as his voice can manage. His heart is beating hard against his throat. If she should turn and laugh at him, now, throw back this offering of kindness, then he would shatter and run. She is on the bed, bloodied and broken, but he thinks he might feel more vulnerable, in this moment.

She does not laugh, however, does not make much motion to signal she had heard him at all. Her eyes flutter slowly closed then open, and then she sighs.

"I cannot stand, to clean myself," she tells him. Her voice is soft and weary. Resigned. "My legs are shaking."

And his heart, such as it is, breaks a little more inside.

Anger boils, resentment towards the little golden King and his twisted pleasures reaching a new crescendo. Men have damaged each other, and women, since the dawn of time. Sandor Clegane is not ignorant of that. He is not innocent, in any way, of the atrocities of war. He has seen the pillage and murder of villagers, during battle. He has seen the torture and the rape, at his brother's hand, at the hands of soldiers he commands. The Hound's men are allowed their trophies also. He has never, before, thought twice about it. It was what happened, during battle. He has never before been on the receiving end.

Now, however, standing before Sansa Stark and watching her fist her hands into her pink-streaked sheets, he feels like someone had kicked him in the face. The insult stings, but he cannot do anything about it. He is the King's dog and Joffrey is powerful, right now. With Stannis and Renly having annihilated one another, and the Northern lords fight amongst themselves, King's Landing is momentarily safe. The Southern men have risen in its defence, after the boy-king's marriage to Margaery Tyrell. Joffrey Baratheon's reign seems like to continue, indefinitely.

The rage must have shown on his face, because the Stark girl looks quickly away, swallowing hard. Perhaps, she misinterprets his feelings as being directed towards her, rather at Joffrey on her behalf. With his twisted features, the Hound expects it is hard to tell. The anger fades quickly to shame – shame that he wants her, shame that he cares whether Joffrey hurts her. She is not his. She cannot even meet his eye, most days, or look at him in the face. And Joffrey is a King. This might not be right, but it is within his power, and since when have Kings ever done what is right?

A King, to the Hound, is not a matter of blood. Joffrey, born a bastard of incest, is as Kingly in Sandor's eyes as any other. A King is just a man who stands at the head of a thousand swords. And Joffrey does that. He might not be valiant, or just, but he is powerful. And Sansa is his toy. Not the Hound's.

He turns to go, but a quick exhaled from the little bird's mouth halts him, with one hand on the doorframe.

"Please Ser,"

His fingers clench on wood, trying to force his feet to step out into the hall, to take him away from this. He will go back to his quarters, or, better, to the depths of Flea Bottom, to find an honest whore and a good flagon of mead. He will drink and fuck the night away and wake tomorrow with a blinding headache and only the faintest recollection of what had happened, here. And when his eyes meet Sansa Stark's, then both of them will be filled with same, because of it.

"I am no Ser," he rasps and begins to leave.

"_Sandor, please_..."

Up until that moment, he did not know she even knew his name. She had certainly never said it to him, before, preferring to call him by titles he neither had nor wanted. He was no Lord, or Ser, but he was Sandor – he had been 'Sandor' long before he was a 'Hound' – and he could not help but respond to it. She was pleading him, with his own name.

He hovers in the doorway.

He stands there for what seems an eternity, and then a decision forms inside him, spurred by the sound of a maid's footsteps in the corridor outside. He steps back inside the room and closes the door behind him, turning to face the little bird on the bed. She does not flinch, nor say any more, but watches as he unhooks the sword from his belt and lays it on a nearby table – a movement meant to reassure her, as to his intentions. He walks to her side, unarmed, and stands on front of her.

"Come on, then," he asks, offering her a gloved hand to help pull herself upright.

She takes it, small fingers slipping around his own. The weight of her hand feels completely right, within his and the Hound wonders, again, whether they were meant to belong to one another. In another lifetime, when he was not scarred and she was not broken, perhaps he would have been a knight and won her affections. Perhaps they could have been like her silly songs.

One arm clutching her sheets to her chest, she tried to rise, with his help, but her legs gave and she collapsed back to the bed, wincing. The Hound looked about himself, with a stab of uncertainty, before releasing her hand. Sansa, perhaps thinking he was leaving again, gave a little whimper, but he ignored it. Walking over to the bowl of hot water, brought by the maid servants, he removed his gloves and placed them on the table before picking up the fine porcelain bowl and carrying it to her side. If you cannot lead the bird to water, bring the water to the bird...

He did not look up to her eyes as he lay the bowl on the floor and knelt beside it, dipping one towel in until it was wet enough, then raising it to her face. He tried to avoid her eyes, out of unease, but it was impossible when they were fixed, raptly, on his face. As he placed the wet towel to a cut on her forehead, she raised her hand to help, but disturbed a cut on her side as she did so and gave a stifled cry of pain.

"Don't, girl," he murmured, brushing her hand away, working the towel down her forehead to her cheek and wiping away the blood there.

Let me help you...

She does not protest as he continues to clean her neck and shoulders, rising to sit on the bed as he bathes the slashes across her back. All of them are shallow, but he knows the cleaning will still be painful. The water the maids brought, to bathe her wounds, had been taken from the sea. As good as it is for cleaning the infection from a wound, it stings like the tips of a thousand tiny daggers – the Hound has had enough experience with the stuff to know that for truth. His back is covered with scars as well.

He continues to wash her until he reaches the edge of the sheets, where he pause, looking up to her, for permission. Sansa Stark falters, for a moment. Perhaps she is not sure if she wants to be bared, before a man such as him. It is a valid fear. The Hound would be the first to admit that. After all, he is hardly known for his gentle disposition and he features in enough nefarious war stories, to frighten a young woman like Sansa Stark half-silly. Still, she had undressed before Joffrey, just hours before, and he had been the one to bear her ill. Surely, she would strip herself to let him help her.

The Hound waits for a few seconds, feeling a little maligned, until she nods and looks away, granting his request. Releasing her hold on the sheets, she lets him peel them away from her body, wincing as the movement re-opens some of her wounds. The cuts beneath the sheets are deeper than those above. Joffrey could be a clever enough little bastard, when it counted. The real damage was limited to the areas which could not be seen, or easily explained by cuts from a rosebush, while out picking flowers.

Careful or not, the court will soon become suspicious, the Hound thinks bitterly. Sansa had been out 'picking flowers' so often, over the last few weeks, that she could have woven a new cape for Loras Tyrell.

While he dabs, gently as he can, at her back, he tries not to think about the smooth curve of her flesh, leading around to her belly and her roundly swollen teats. She has matured a great amount, over these past three years. Since the day when Joffrey had her stripped and beaten, she has become a woman grown. There is only the hint of a girl left, in the slimness of her belly; smooth and un-muscled, never having borne a child, nor done heavy labour. She is soft, all over, and he finds himself harder, because of it.

With her in such a state, he knows he should not want her, but he does. He ignores the call of his body, however. He cannot, could never, touch her like that. He is a hound. She is a highborn lady, from a great northern family. She is a wolf, from a land of ice, and he is a dog from under the heel of Casterly Rock. They were never meant to belong to one another – not in this lifetime, anyways. Yet, as she breathes in sharply, his hand falters against her skin and he cannot help but raise his eyes to hers.

"Did I hurt you?" he asks.

"Never like he does," she whispers back.

He wonders when she had found the courage to look him in the eye. Had it been when the boy-King was balls deep inside of her, a week ago, or when he beat her to within an inch of her life, last month? When had she lost the fear she had cultivated so well, over these past years? Sandor Clegane has a face which inspires fear, but she stares at it with something close to longing. She does not flinch when he frowns and his cheek twists slightly – hard, burned skin moving on its own accord to disguise the expression.

Standing, he moves back around to the front of her and kneels beside her legs, peeling the sheets back from around her hips and thighs. The sheets reveal her legs, pressed firmly together, a darker flash of hair showing, in the triangle where her thighs met. With her thighs flush, he cannot see anything more intimate. The sight of her dark hair, however, her smooth belly, soft teats and her eyes boring down into his, is enough to drive him to the brink of distraction.

He is painfully hard, now, incredibly uncomfortable within the confines of his breeches. He wonders if she knows. She cannot be innocent in the ways of a man's body, he thinks, but – then again – her experiences have been with Joffrey and the boy-King took his pleasures in her pain, not in the natural way a man should take pleasure in a woman.

He could hand the towel over, he thinks, and end this before he loses himself completely. She could manage to clean the rest of herself, surely. She looks far stronger now. Her limbs have stopped shaking and her breathing, while still fast, is no longer punctuated by sobs. Her eyes are clear and focussed on him, however, and he feels a strange, possessive urge to finish what he started.

For her.

Dipping the cloth back into the water, he squeezes it free of blood and lifts it to wipe the outside of her thigh, then the top of it, then all the way down to her calves and her delicate feet. He rinses the towel, dipping it and squeezing it free of blood until it is clean to touch her again. The water in the bowl is now pink with her. He raises the cloth to her skin and repeats the procedure, with her other leg. When he is finished that, he spends an inordinate amount of time dipping and wringing the towel out, not quite sure whether he is allowed to clean the inner sides of her legs – not quite sure whether he wants to do it. It feels like it would be something more akin to torture than reward.

He can see shadow of a cut, however, disappearing into the curve of her thigh, and he knows that it must be cleaned. If she becomes sick with fever, Joffrey will not waste a maester to save her life. She must be clean and healed, if she is to survive. The Hound swallows, his fingers lying against the side of her knee. He knows he should ask her to finish the job and is halfway through forming the words to say so, when she bites her lip and parts her legs for him.

His cock twitches, beneath rough fabric.

"Fuck, girl," he mutters, lowering his eyes.

He is not like the men in her songs. He is not gallant and noble, nor even honourable. Sandor Clegane is a Hound, who takes what he wants and rarely denies himself when it comes to bodily pleasures. Yet, kneeling between the legs of a woman he has desired for years, he looks away. What are you become, Dog, he asks himself. Since when did you shy away, like a pup?

The girl looks, for a moment, a little hurt and makes a tiny move as to shut herself away again, but he slides his hand to the inside of her knee to prevent her. Then, as gently as a man as large as he can manage, he slides the cloth against the inside of her thigh, cleaning the blood from the shallow cut across it.

It is not deep, not like those across her lower back. Clearly Joffrey had investigated methods of torture. To cut too deep, here, would cause a girl like Sansa Stark to bleed out in moments. Better to stay shallow, in the crook of the leg. He has learned other things, too, thinks the Hound, as he winds the cloth around the back of her thigh, and then cleans it. It is not just blood which comes away on the towel's surface. The bodily fluids mix, turning the seed pink, but a Hound notices. A Hound can smell it on her.

"You said he did not lie with you," he rasps, as softly as he can manage. Even to his ears, he sounds accusing and bites back any more words, lest she think the same. He is not accusing. He does not mean to be, but the rage is rushing up within him. He wants to see Joffrey's blood spilt on the stone floor, the boy-King's belly – groin to neck – opened by his blade. Only then, only then, will the burning anger be satisfied.

Sansa Stark sets her jaw.

"He did not. He..." clearing her throat, she somehow manages to find a genteel way of saying what he would have said so much coarser. "He finds his pleasure in his own hand, Ser. He merely cleaned his hand on me."

A growl catches at the back of his throat, cut off before she truly has the chance to hear it. She flinches anyway, but seems to know that it is not meant for her because, after a minute or so of uncomfortable silence, her hand slides down to rest on his. He lifts his eyes. Hers are focussed on him and they are blazingly strong. For just a second, she looks unbreakable.

"Thank you, Sandor," She calls him by name and, again, looks so much more like a woman than a girl. He supposes she is, now. Ten and six years. His own mother had birthed him at ten and eight, his brother at ten and three. Ten and six was a woman grown, not a girl. But he will still think of her as his little bird, if she will still chirp to him. And she does. "My legs feel much better, now. Would you help me to stand?"

He gives a gruff 'yes', in reply, and pulls back from her thigh, standing on front of her.

She is still slight, in build, and still a lot smaller than he, but she is already taller than many women at the court. She is taller than the queen, almost as tall as Joffrey himself – a fact which, no doubt, inspires ire in the young King. Her face, despite the thin scratches from Joffrey's sword tip, is angular and beautiful. Her skin is pale as snow, her cheekbones as if carved from ice itself. Holding out a hand, the Hound breathes in slowly as she slides her fingers into his palm and uses his strong arms to lever herself off the bed. She staggers the first pace, or two, then straightens.

Standing, their faces are not so very far apart. Her naked belly brushes the front of his breeches and she cannot fail to feel him, now, cannot fail to understand what she does to him. He is hard and he wants to lose himself in sordid fantasy as he does so often, these nights. He wants to lie on his side, in the dark of his small bedchamber and thrust into his hand as he imagined thrusting into her. The thought both excites him further and sends shame simmering through his veins. She is not meant for a creature such as him. He is born second son of a minor house. He is a dog. She was meant for a prince. If they were meant for each other, it was not in this lifetime.

At her behest, he walks her over to the table upon which her powders and perfumes are laid. For a horrible moment, he thinks she is going to dress for dinner and ask him to take her back downstairs. She does not, however. She just reaches into a box and withdraws a golden hair clasp. It is a simple clasp, a circle, with autumn leaves laid across it, every intricate detail of their leaves etched into the gold. After looking at it, in her palm, she turns and presses it into his hand, closing his fingers around it.

A flash of anger rises within him.

"I don't require payment, woman."

Her eyes flicker between his, with just the tiniest hint of uncertainty.

"It is not payment, for what you have done. What you have done was a kindness."

He snorts, but has no retort fitting, so keeps his mouth shut.

"Sandor..."

At his name, he lifts his eyes back onto hers. Her fingers hold his closed, around the hair clasp. He can feel its golden edges pressing into the rough thickness of his skin. Never have his hands felt so calloused as when her softer ones twine into them. His fingers feel lumbering and indelicate against her skin. He wishes he was made of something finer, something that was more worthy to touch her like this.

"I try to hide it when my bloods come," she admits quietly to him. Her eyes are lowered, but she does not sound as bashful as he would expect, to share something so intimate. Her cheeks do not colour and there is no girlish breathiness to her voice. "Every moon, I tell that they come a week later than they do, for fear he will lie with me and the seed will quicken. I cause there to be blood on my sheets by cutting my arm."

His jaw his set, teeth clenched together. He does not want to hear this, but he says nothing. His little bird has nobody else to chirp to.

"But some day soon he will learn of it, and I cannot grow his child inside of me," she whispers, "it would kill me, ser. I'm not strong enough."

"Sansa..." He does not know why he chooses this moment, to use her name for the first time. Perhaps he knows it is what she needs, to halt the flow of her words. Perhaps, he just needs to say it.

"I cannot do it." The strength has faded back a little from her eyes and he can see desperation there. "I cannot love something that is part of him. I cannot let him make a child in my belly, let him taint me with his evil."

"And I cannot do anything about it, even if I did care to," he adds, with unnecessary vehemence.

She knows he would care to, he realises, as her eyes shift across his face. She knows everything. Somehow, it does not comfort him, just makes him feel more exposed and angry.

"I should cut your tongue out for your insolence, girl," he snarls, trying to back away, even angrier when her hand catches him. "There are a thousand worse fates, for a woman, than birthing a King's bastard."

"I don't want his bastard," she spits, eyes like fire, expression one of twisted agony.

"And since when has Joffrey given two fucks over what you want, little bird?"

She does not seem to be listening. Instead, her eyes are focussed intently on his. "Let me have yours, instead."

It takes a good few seconds for her words to make sense to him. He is halfway through forming a retort when the realisation hits and renders him momentarily speechless. His lips part, in unsaid words. Her eyes glisten, with unshed tears. How desperate she must be, he thinks, to beg a fuck from a dog – to spread her legs for a man like him. What a monster their boy-King must truly be, for her to rather have my seed quicken inside of her.

"Please,"

And she begs...

He has had dreams, vivid, wild, unlikely dreams where she has begged for him, but it is never like this. There is never a torrent of confusion and want, he is never torn between desire and duty. In his dreams, things are simple and there is no Joffrey. There is no castle around them, there are no guards, or towers, or headmen. He may not have done her body justice in his dreams, with its thousand beautiful imperfections, but at least, there, she is not crying as she begs him to take her.

This is wrong.

"For your sake, I will pretend never to have heard that," he tells her, quietly. His rasping voice is almost a hiss.

Her left eye leaks a single tear, falling down across her cheek. They are still so close that he can feel her heart beating, in her belly. It would be so easy, he muses, to steer her back towards the bed, to give in to what she is asking – to seal both of their fates, once and for all.

"I cannot have his child..." his little bird whispers.

"And you cannot have mine," Sandor replies, dully.

"It will kill me. I would rather die."

Her fingers are incredibly tight around his. The clasp between them digs into his skin. It is his burnt hand, he realises, which she had chosen to place her payment in. It was his burn skin that she was gripping so tight that it was almost painful. The fact that she was willingly touching his scars heat his body through – the only fire he had ever found pleasant, since his brother had forced him down upon the flames. It would be so easy, to fold himself inside of her, to spill his seed into her warm, tight body. But it could mean the death of them both. He was sure he would only take a few strokes, but what if someone were to enter the chambers in that time. And even if they did not, what would happen, in nine moons time?

"And what of when you birth a child without golden hair and Lannister eyes?" he asks his woman-girl, watching her Tully eyes flash and dance between his. "What then?"

"There are dark haired men throughout my line," she tells him, quietly. "And Joffrey's father had dark hair. I would praise the King, for giving me a child who is truly of the King's blood."

It made the situation ten times worse, thought the Hound, to know that she had given this a deal of thought. And it made the situation a thousand times worse to imagine, even for a second or two, that he could ever have a son.

It was something that the Hound had never dared to think about. As a young man, he had long since let go of any hopes he had, of finding a wife who did not cringe at the sight of him, of finding any woman, in fact, who came to his bed willingly and not for coin. He had turned his attentions towards his sword, instead, becoming strong enough to destroy the brother who had snatched normality from him.

Gregor had taken his chances of having a family away, when he plunged Sandor's face into that fire. So, Sandor Clegane had grown into a Hound, fought like a Hound, and had resolved to die like one, too. He had never taken a woman who had not taken his coin. If his seed ever quickened, it had been deep in the belly of a whore, who killed the unborn child with moon tea and moved on to her next customer without a second thought.

"You don't want my whelps, little bird," he murmurs, through the flash of pain the moment causes him.

She does not want his whelps. She wants out. She wants an excuse for Joffrey to lop her head off, for being too free with her cunt. Well, there are other men at court who would willingly lay with her. Let them be her dog, this time. He is done. He tries to turn away but her fingers are too bloody tight and, though his body is strong enough to snap her in two, he halts when she tugs at him, pleading him again, with her eyes.

"Go to sleep, girl,"he tells her, trying so hard to be soft. "The fire in your heart will seem a little less in the morning."

Slowly, painfully slowly, her fingers loosen around his and her hand falls free to her sides. Broken.

.

Sandor Clegane turns on his heel and walks quickly to the door. Wrenching it open, he throws himself out into the corridor, slamming the thick oak behind. Rage courses through him – he is angry, both at himself and at the little bird, for opening the doors she had, in his mind. Father her bastard, indeed. He could no more sire a litter to the Queen. They belong to the Royal house of Baratheon. They belong to Joffrey, as did he. They are all his toys, all his playthings. He could hurt and maim and kill every one of them at will.

Unfairness does not come in to it. There is no justice in this world of theirs, just the way things are. Joffrey is a King, Sansa is a highborn toy, and the Hound is a Dog.

_A dog, a dog, a dog._

Halfway down the hall his feet stumble over a loose stone and he falls sideways against the nearest alcove, fingers gripping the hard edge of stone as he sought to keep himself upright. His body betrays him, legs growing uncharacteristically weak, making him lean for support. His left hand is fisted tightly around something and it pricks into his skin. Uncurling his fingers, he looks down and sees the golden hair clasp Sansa Stark had handed him, its outline imprinted on his skin. He is marked by her.

Blood sings through his body, like it does in the aftermath of a battle. His skin is tingling, heart thumping, hard, beneath his ribs. It feels like it might be trying to escape, to crawl back through to her, perhaps. That is all he wants to do. Crawl back through and slide into her bed; slide between her legs and pretend that things were not as they are. Her maids would not come again until well into the next morning. If she sent them away, Joffrey might not notice her absence until the afternoon. If he were to fall into her bed and take her in his arms, they might make it half a day, before they were both found out and beheaded. Well, he would be beheaded. The girl would no doubt have to endure far worse horrors.

What if they got away? What if he slipped her out of this place and took her somewhere safe. Pretending, for a moment, that this was possible, he searched for safe havens in his mind. A brothel, perhaps. Nobody would look for Sansa Stark in a brothel and the Hound knew establishments where even Varys and LIttlefinger had no ears. Low places, dark places, places only a dog would visit. He would leave her, there and return to the castle. There were plenty enough moments, in a day, when a dog was alone with his master. He, alone, was that trusted, of the Kingsguard. And then Joffrey would reap what he had sown.

Sandor bites his cheek, his blood singing. _Joffrey_. He would sink his sword into the boy-King's soft belly; spill the wetness inside of his golden veneer free upon the stone floor. The boy was not so heavy, it would be easy to lift him and hide his body in a secret place. There were many secret places, in a castle the size of this one. It would be so easy, the Hound thought, his heart racing faster. He could take Sansa away tonight and get the king alone, tomorrow morn. He was of the Kingsguard, after all. He was at his right hand side, all of the day. And nobody would question his authority.

The thought causes him to falter, with a wry smile. He is of the Kingsguard. If Joffrey went missing, he would be the first who they came looking for. He would be missed before Sansa was.

Cursing softly, his voice echoes off the cold stone walls. Such a stupid dog, he is. Such a stupid, foolish dog, for thinking about a future other than the one he is fated to follow. The ugly dog does not get the pretty bird – he knows enough of those stupid songs to know that much. He will never spirit her away, in the dead of night, like he will never sink his sword into Joffrey's soft belly. The world would chase them down. The Lannisters would hunt them until their heads were both mounted on spikes, outside the Sept.

He curses again, softer this time. It will never happen, not for this Hound. He will never find solace inside of her and she will never birth his pups. They will continue to be Joffrey Baratheon's playthings because the alternative was no alternative at all. For a moment, he considers whether she will truly take her life, if she falls pregnant with the boy-King's bastard. He decides she probably would. In a moment of abandon, he knows she is strong enough to take the plunge – to throw herself from a high window, or dig a dagger deep into her heart. She would do it, if she knew it would end her suffering.

Pushing himself off the wall, he staggers around to face her room again. Forcing one foot on front of the other, he makes his way back to it and pushes it roughly open.

Sansa Stark stands by the window, as naked as the day she was born. Her back is to him, her hands clenching the narrow window sill. She does not turn as he enters the room and the Hound wonders whether she knew it was him, or she had just no longer cared who had come, to torment her. Deciding he had nowhere near enough words to explain this to her, he stepped quietly forwards, stopping at the bed on his way across, to pick up a sheet in his large hands. Arriving at her back, he draped it across her shoulders.

Her hands rose to clasp it, her head turning slowly to look up at him.

"You came back," her voice is course, with emotion.

"I have something of yours," he holds out his hand, the golden clasp within it.

Sansa Stark smiles.

"It was my mother's."

"Then you should keep it safe," he rasps.

She turns from the window, folding the sheet around her as she looks up at him again. Her Tully eyes are endless and deep.

"I am sorry, for what I asked of you," she tells him quietly.

"Little bird, you are too young to be sorry."

She should be too young to be sorry and yet, he knows, that her heart is heavy with regrets. These last three years, she has seen her family fall around her. She has been beaten and broken and now she is to birth the bastard child of the boy who ordered all of that pain. There is no way that a man as limited in human emotion as the Hound can hope to understand what she is feeling, but he can help – albeit not in the manner she asked of him.

"I will bring you the moon tea," he tells her, roughly, lifting one cautious hand to her hair. He slides the golden clasp into place amongst her shining auburn locks. He is not in the practice of fixing ornaments on women, but the little clasp does most of the work for him. Gathering a few silken strands, it holds them off her face, exposing her graceful cheekbones all the better. The clasp looks a hundred times more beautiful on her than it ever had, against his skin. But so do most things. "I will not let his bastard grow in you, so long as it is within my power to stop it."

And one day soon, someone will figure out who it is, who is helping the little bird, and it will be his head. Somehow, the Hound does not mind so very much.

Sansa Stark stares up at him, her expression veiled, for once. When she eventually speaks, her words are soft, the harshness of tears gone from her throat.

"Thank you."

The Hound cannot tell if she is surprised, but nods anyway. Somehow, his hand has fallen into the curve of her neck, fingers entwined in her auburn locks as they spill down her back, there. Realising he is touching her quite intimately, he almost moves to pull away but, before he can, she leans into him. Stepping forwards across the stone, she pulls the sheet tight across her chest and stands up on tip-toe, to press her lips against his. The meaning of the kiss, he is not entirely sure. What he does know, for certain, is that it is not a chaste kiss.

"For what a little bird's words are worth," she whispers, against his burned neck, "You are the only man I would have asked."

She draws back, then, and – breathing somewhat harder than he had been before – the Hound's enormous hand falls from her hair. They stand a few inches apart, watching one another with a mix of curiosity and a multitude of other emotions, each more dangerous than the last. He loves her. She knows it. Perhaps that is why he is the only one she would ask, to father her bastards. Perhaps, it is because she feels something more for him than gratitude. He cannot tell and knows he can never ask. She is a lady. He is a Hound. They are not meant to belong to one another.

Yet they do. Irrevocably.

"You will have to find a way to tell me, when you need it," he clears his throat, gruffly.

"I'll wear the hair clasp," she replies, a little bit breathless – there is still a hint of the girl in her, then.

He grunts his approval of the plan and takes a step back, away from her side.

.

The night could have ended so very differently and, yet, it ends as it does every night. Sansa Stark crawls into her bed and lets the tears slide noiselessly down her cheek while, in the barren quarters of the White Tower, Sandor Clegane lies on his narrow bed and spills his seed into the palm of his hand, thinking of her.

They rise and dress the next morning, they attend the breakfast and make their appearances at court. The Hound stands at Joffrey's side and distracts him with the idea of a tourney when the young King looks bored enough to want to play with Sansa. They meet each other's eyes only once but, in that moment, she sees more warmth there than any living soul has shown her in three long years.

She feels, suddenly, less alone in the world and so she goes through with his plan. She does not throw herself from the Sept window, as she had long been considering. Instead, she lets the boy-King find his pleasure in her, wears the hair clasp and takes a kiss from the man who brings the moon tea, each month, when he bears it to her.

Sometimes, rarely - when they find themselves alone and the King is otherwise occupied with his new wife, or his unfortunate whores – she takes a little more from him than a kiss. Curled up against him, she traces patterns in the seed he spills across her belly. She asks him not to spend it inside of her and he never questions her why. She doesn't think she could ever tell him the truth: that she could never kill his pups. Moon tea is for the bastard King's bastards, she thinks, laying her head back against her Hound's chest and closing her eyes tight.

One day, she will be free of this prison, she tells him, as they lie together in her prison's feather bed. One day, the boy-King will fall from power or lose interest in toying with her and, when that day comes, she will flee from here and never look back. She has had enough of Kings and knights to last a life time and she has no family or home left, so she will travel far from this place. She will find a warm country to call home and a lowborn, honest man to make a wife of her. She will live in solitude and peace, letting his child grow fat within her.

She tells her Hound this and smiles when he asks her what sort of honest man she would be searching for.

He is the only man she would ever ask.


End file.
